Alright, I'm back from Schulbrücke Weimar 2012 :D It was really fun, met lots of cool people, wish I could have stayed there longer than. Here an update for you :)

Disclaimer: I own nothing except my OC Jackie Walker

Chapter X

„Thirty-eight of New York's finest, versus one guy in a unitard. Am I correct?"

oOoOoOo

I felt almost human again.

Tiptoe to my room, up a darkened hall,

Past closed door.

I wondered if I'd ever feel completely human again.

A tapping sound.

I stopped reading and listened carefully. The only sound in my room right now is the music coming from iTunes. Volare by Gypsy Kings. Dismissing the tapping sound I just heard few seconds ago I returned back to my book.

And the tapping sound returned. I looked up again from my book and stared at the window. It was closed, and no one was outside. I hope. Just in case, I stopped the music and continued reading. Of course this time I made sure to keep an ear open.

There was it again.

Okay, there's definitely someone outside. I out my book aside, jumped down from my bed, and carefully stalked toward the window. I looked out of it, but couldn't really see anything. It was already pitch dark outside. A sign that fall has finally arrived. The window remained close, because I'm too chicken to open it. What if something jumps inside and kills me?

Just when I was thinking about getting Steve, something big, red and blue appeared in front of my window.

I let out a scream and stumbled a bit back. Clutching my XL-shirt, I tried to calm down a bit, and took a closer on that thing outside my window.

Turns out that thing was a person, hanging upside down. Said person waved at me and tapped the window again.

"Can you open the window?" Came out the slightly muffles voice from Peter Parker.

Nodding my head, I took a deep breath and opened the window, letting him into my room. Peter made a perfect salto and silently landed on his two feet. Respect.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

Peter stood up and stretched his arms. "Showing you my pajama-Halloween-costume." He answered and made a full 360 degrees turn, to show me his skin tight costume.

I looked at it from head to toe and pursed my lips. "Not bad, Peter, not bad." And here I was, doubting his knitting skills. But now I know better.

He took off his mask and shook his hair. Putting down his back pack, Peter looked around in my room. I silently complimented myself for tidying it up today, or else he would have seen the mess.

I looked at his back pack. "What are you carrying with you?"

"Oh, just small thins, you know… Cell phone, a small first-aid kit, my camera…"

Camera? The same one I accidently 'stole' and returned it to him afterwards?

Peter walked around a little bit in my room and looked at my book shelf and then at the wall next to it. There were some posters and photos hanging on it. Before all… This happened flyers from 'Avengers', 'Captain America' and 'Thor' used to hang there, but now they are gone, along with the whole Marvel universe. Sad isn't it? I had to replace them with photos.

Peter looked at each one, asking some questions. He then pointed at the photos of Thor wearing sunglasses and making the peace sign. It was quickly taken before he and Loki went back to Asgard. "Is that one of those super heroes from the Manhattan incident?" He asked curiosly.

"Mhm." I replied.

"That's uhm… The God, righ?"

"Yup."

"… Is he really a God?" Peter doubted.

I merely shrugged my shoulders as an answer, meaning that I'm not going to answer that question. I really don't like where this is going…

"Uh, if you don't mind me asking… How did you get involved in this whole… Thing?" And there is the one million dollar question.

What should I say now? I wanted to watch a movie but instead found myself in the movie with no way back? Seems like a bad idea to me. Especially since I still have SHIELD on my tail… There were times I thought it's the best I tell Peter the 'truth about Jackie Walker's origin', but a second voice argued that he would just think I'm insane and never want to do anything with me again. And that thought made me sad.

"How much do you know about me and my 'relationship' to this incident?" I decided to ask first. And depending on how much Peter knows, I'll think about whether I should tell him a bit or not.

"Well… I read few articles on the Internet." Peter listed "The most famous one was about the departure from those Gods… And you gave the bad one a hug…"

My eyebrows rose higher as he continued talking. Well, so Peter doesn't know much at all… Just that I gave a super villain a hug. Actually I'm surprised that SHIELD didn't like, deleted those articles. I always thought super secret organizations are always trying to keep a low profile.

"So I thought since you had the honor to actually say goodbye to them you should at least have a 'special connection' to them…" Peter finished explaining.

I pressed my lips into a thin line and stared at the photo of Thor. None of us said anything for a while.

Peter then opened his mouth to deliver something, but I quickly cut him off: "I… Somehow got dragged into this mess… That's all I can tell you…" For now.

He looked at me for a long time, waiting patiently for me to continue telling my tale. When Peter realized that I most likely won't tell him more than that, he pulled out a chair and sat down, looking somewhat… Disappointed. But why? Because I couldn't tell him everything?

"You never tell me much about you…" Peter suddenly pointed out.

I face him with a surprised look. "I don't?"

He shook his head.

Hm, that's weird. Judging from all those times I spend with him I thought I'd tell him a lot about me. I for my part know a lot about him already. Oh yeah, maybe I don't tell him much because most of the stuff is super secret. Still there was a small guilt in my chest. Now I felt like I owe him something.

I sighed, run a hand through my unkempt hair and stared at the window, wondering what I could tell Peter about me. He was currently playing with my Sideswipe Transformers playtoy.

"Okay." I announced and got his attention "Let's play twenty questions then."

That way Peter can learn a bit more about me, and I well, I'll just expand my knowledge. I sat down on my bed; legs stretched out and leaned against the wall, hugging a pillow.

Peter, playing the gentleman, said: "Ladies first."

"Merci beaucoup mon cherie." I mocked "Where did you learn to knit?"

"Still doubting my kitting skills?" Peter answered and twirled around on my chair "Aunt May taught me that. It was forced, but soon I found it was actually pretty fun."

"Oh okay. Your turn now."

"Wait, lemme think… Uhm, what do your parents do? I mean, like what jobs…"

Already trying to get some background information about me?

"My father leads a company or something like that, I don't know, I barely talk to him let alone see him." I informed him bitterly. Suddenly the conversation between me and Loki in the Helicarrier months ago popped into my head. The things he said hurt a lot, and it was kind of true that I didn't really had a good father-daughter relationship with my old man. But then again, who was he to judge that? Wasn't he the one with the biggest daddy issue?

Peter looked at me with a raised eyebrow, but didn't ask any further, probably sensing that this was actually something I don't like to talk about.

"My turn now." Before I could think of a good question, police sirens could be heard from outside. Peter got up from my chair and put on the mask. "Duty calls, sorry. I'll text you later!" He grabbed his rucksack, shot out a web and swung out of my room.

It smelled faintly like rotten eggs. I see, he still hasn't got rid of that horrible smell from his web.

oOoOoOo

"Did you make up your mind already?"

"…"

"Thought so. What is it that you're so hesitant about, Walker?"

"Yeah, well, I find it a bit weird that you, the great Nick Fury, wants to recruit someone like me… And I'd like to know why."

"That is for SHIELD to know and for you to find out."

"Doesn't help me a lot."

"You are being watched by SHIELD anyway, because of the whole Tesseract story and other things. Joining SHIELD would make everything a bit easier. For you and for us."

"I doubt that everything's going to be easier."

"You are already showing great potential, you just don't know it yet. You'll make a great agent."

"Oh, really?"

"Think about it. It is a one-chance opportunity. Don't miss it."

oOoOoOo

"What are you reading, JayJay?"

"My French book. I have a class paper tomorrow." I replied and turned to the next page. Barely three months school and the first class papers were already announced a long time ago. Now all I have to do is study, study and study, until I fall dead over. Well, technically this is my own fault. I could have started days ago with studying; instead I pushed everything to the last day before the class paper. Like always.

Mentally promising myself that for the other tests I would start studying earlier, I grabbed a hand full Jelly Belly's and put them into my mouth.

Tony quickly used the opportunity to snatch my French book and skimmed through the pages.

"Hey!" I protested with my mouth full, trying to get my book back, but Tony only held it higher. He read out loud a passage from the text in semi-broken French.

"Can I have my book back now?" I interrupted him rather rudely, and swallowed down the last Jelly Belly.

Tony gave the book back to me, saying something about me not understanding a small joke. Just then Bruce walked into the room with some papers in his hands. For the last past months, he's been given a room in Stark's tower. There he has been doing stuff whatever those two science bros do.

"I heard you finally met Captain Roger's girlfriend." Bruce mentioned while sorting out the papers and putting them neatly into a folder. I wonder if the results from my blood samples are in them. I just had my monthly Tesseract-in-blood check schedules in Stark's tower. I'm glad it wasn't in the Helicarrier. No matter how cool that flying fortress is, I don't think I'll be able to survive another meal on board. Another good thing is that I got rid of those SHIELD band-aid. The bead thing is not that it got replaced with STARK band-aid.

"Yeah, I did." I confirmed "I'm not impressed."

"You don't like her?" Tony joined the conversation "Jealous?" He wiggled with his eyebrows suggestively.

I rolled m eyes in annoyance and looked back into my French book again. Truth to be told, I don't really feel like studying anymore. Looking at the clock, I saw that I already have studied for… Twenty minutes. I think I deserved a break now. The funny thing is that my break is always longer then the time I spent studying.

"How's things going on with that Parker boy?" Tony asked casually, while opening an alcohol bottle. Bruce was still sorting the papers, but I'm sure he's listening too.

I shot Tony a disapproving look, which he waved off easily. "Uh, what should I say, we haven't seen each other for three days already because both of us have to study for school." And one of busy wearing a spandex and doing some thug-hunting. I sometimes call that 'thunting'.

"Jackie." Bruce called me whole comparing some papers with each other "I want you to take a look at this."

I did as he said and walked over to him. Bruce placed four papers on the table. "So, there might be some minor… Complications." He carefully started to explain.

I raised an eyebrow. "Uh, okay… ?"

"How about you start to describe what's on the papers first?"

Describing what's on the paper? Why can't he just tell me straight what's wrong with me? I quickly overflew the papers and described: "There are diagrams on each paper."

Bruce waited for me to continue, which I did. "Uhm, each diagram has got different balk… The x-axis shows the substance contained in a blood and the y-axis the amount of them in percent…"

I felt like in school again. I took a few seconds to look closely on what was written on the x-axis. One of the things was marked as 'Tesseract'. Starting from the first paper, there wasn't a balk or a number. But on the second paper, there was a decimal number in percent written on it. It says 0,5%. It's a pretty small number, and the balk wasn't visible yet, but still it worried me a bit. Onto the next. In the same spot, the number increased a tiny little bit. 0,9%. My heart started to beat a little bit faster. Still I continued looking at them. The third paper now. 1.3% A small balk was visible. Taking the risk to look at the last one, I gulped and read the printed number. 1.7%, and the balk was a bit taller.

After seeing this, all I could say was: "Why?"

Bruce shook his head and looked at me apologetic. "I honestly have no idea."

I slumped down on the couch and ran both hands through my hair, letting out a deep tired sigh. "Shit." And just when I though I everything is alright now, something has to get into the way.

Fuck you, Tesseract.

oOoOoOo

"Where were you?"

"I was out."

"Did you get the eggs?"

"Nope. Forgot the eggs! I'm gonna get it now."

"No, you most certainly will not! Not at this hour! … Look at me, Peter? Take off the damn hood and look at me... Where do you go? Who does this to you?"

"Please go to sleep, Aunt May."

"Please tell me."

"Aunt May, please, please please go to sleep!"

"I can't sleep! Don't you understand? I can't sleep! … Peter, listen to me. Secrets have a cost, they're not for free. Not now, not ever."

oOoOoOo

Finally after a week full of class papers, class papers and some more class papers my beloved weekend arrived. Which means I'm seeing Peter again.

By the way, the French class paper was horrible. I'm sure I fail it.

I shouldn't have seen the blood sample results. For the last few days, I couldn't think of anything else, thus making it a bit hard for me to focus and more important things. Right now my mind was also occupied with those thoughts.

Peter was talking. About what, I have no idea. I wasn't really listening. We were sitting on a bench in Central Park. The leafs turned red already, each one falling down from the tree to the ground. It was getting colder and colder each day.

He suddenly poked me from the side. "Jackie? Jaaackie? Are you listening?"

"Hm, what?" I said absent minded "No sorry. Can you say that again?"

"How did your math test went?"

"Shitty." I replied.

Peter raised both eyebrows but didn't ask any further. I looked at my wrist, and wondered how the veins would look like if the amount of Tesseract energy were higher. Hopefully not blue. I glanced at Peter and saw that he wasn't in his best state either. He had bags under his eyes, some cuts and bruises on his face (that healed rather quickly though). He looked worn out, because of all the times he spent at night fighting the crime.

"You know…" I slowly approached the subject "Maybe you should, like, take a break for once. From fighting the crime, I mean…"

Peter turned his head around too look at me with those huge, tired brown eyes. "I can't." He whispered.

"Why not?" I asked.

He didn't reply, just sat there silently.

I sighed. "Does your Aunt know about… Your 'job'?" I admit it's a stupid question. Of course the good Aunt May doesn't know about Peter's double life. If she did, I'm sure she would put him under house arrest for the rest of his life.

"She uh… She stays up and always wait till I'm back home…" Peter confessed and fiddled with his fingers, sounding guilty.

"She's scared to lose you too." I summed up.

"What?"

"Your parents died, that was definitely a loss for her. Your uncle died, that was a big loss for her too, and now she's afraid that one day you won't come back again." I explained, somehow getting a bit more frustrated with each explanation. "Peter, stop making her worry that much about you and be a bit, I don't know, caring about her feelings?"

"I know, I know. It's just… Since I already have those spider powers, I believe I should use them for the good…" Peter murmured.

"Maybe you shouldn't have got bitten by those cross-genetic spiders from your dad…" I randomly commented but then quickly clamped my hands over my mouth. I just spilled out a piece of information he's not supposed to know that I know from his dad's filed in SHIELD.

At first, surprise was written all over Peter's face, but then he narrowed his eyes and asked in a low voice: "How do you know that my father worked on that?"

"I… Uh… " I stammered nervously and tried to think of a good excuse. Unfortunately my mind was blank, I couldn't come up with a good and believe able lie.

So instead I remained silent.

Seeing as I don't have anything to say anymore, Peter continued talking: "You, you know a lot things that I didn't know at the beginning. Like, that one comment after I got bitten," Oh yeah, I said hopefully he won't turn into a spider "after that the spider silk," Well, that was Natasha's idea, not mine "and then your suggestion to use a spandex. It's like… You already knew this all was going to happen."

I bit my lower lip. I guess I have underestimated this whole situation. Sooner or later Peter will get a bit suspicious, he is a smart boy after all, I just always hoped that this moment wouldn't come so… Fast.

"And I think there are still a lot more things you're not telling me." He concluded.

"Look, Peter…" I started to explain "I… I'm sorry, really… It's just… The situation is really complicated for me and… I just can't tell you everything because…

"Why?" He asked, looking really sad and disappointed "Is it a secret?"

I looked at the ground and responded in a small voice: "Yeah, it's a secret."

"Best friends don't keep secrets from each other."

It was a normal statement you hear basically in every movies or books. And yet it's a statement that feels like a punch in the gut. Peter saw us a best friends (while I kept wondering whether we were close friends or not) and I just destroyed that friendship by not being honest with him. I could tell him everything now, the whole story maybe, but I didn't.

Few minutes past.

Peter let out a tired and somewhat frustrated sigh, grabbed his bag and left.

Before he disappeared completely out of my eye sight, he turned around and said: "Secrets have a cost, they're not for free. Not now, nor ever. That's what Aunt May told me. Remember that, Jackie."

And I guess my secret just cost our friendship.

oOoOoOo

"Cross-species genetics is finally working. I've used lizard DNA to help Freddie regrow that limb."

"It's a miracle."

"No, it's hard work and a promise, and it's a step closer to the primate lab."

"Ah, but he doesn't have time for every little step."

"Little?"

"I just mean he can't wait."

"Well, he'll have to. Unless he wants to be a lab rat."

"That's not what I'm saying."

"So what are you saying?"

"You have to start human trials, now."

"No, I don't. And no, I won't."

"Well, then he's going to die."

"People die, even Norman Osborn."

"We are not finished."

"Human trials? Where on Earth are you gonna find the people to volunteer?"

"The wards, as far as anyone's concerned, it's for a winter flu shot. I might think that veteran's hospitals a place to start."

"You gotta be kidding me?"

"I don't think I am. It's a little late for shock and indignation, Curt. About fifteen years late."

"I've no idea what you're talking about?"

"Richard Parker wore it well. On you, it's a cheap suit, as it was then."

"I have nothing to do with that."

"Is that what you told his son, Peter?"

"I don't know what you're saying."

"You don't know, or you don't wanna know? … I'll remind you what happened. Richard Parker said just about the same thing then that you are saying now. The clock is ticking, Dr. Connors."

"I uhm… I won't."

"Fine. The formula is ours now, anyway. Say goodbye to that arm you dreamed of. I'm shutting it down. Have your office cleared out by the morning, your toys could be taken away too, you know? Right, Freddie?"

uhm yeah, the fight at the end of this chap kind of turned out totally random, but it is an important part for the plot more or less xD